Heroes Of The Storm Welcomes Overwatch’s Zarya

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A second Overwatch character (class? Hero? Overwatcher? Omniumumumanaut? wizard?) has arrived in Blizzard’s free-to-play crossover MOBA Heroes of the Storm [official site] as a new hero (Champion? Summoner? Lord? wizard?). Zarya, the pink-haired Russian with a honking great gun, arrives in this week’s update with her usual Overwatching abilities.

A StarCraft-themed new map is in too, with nuclear warheads to gather and launch. What a merry dance across the Blizziverse this update is.

Zarya’s abilities are basically her lot in Overwatch. She can blop out grenades, shield herself, and shield allies. Her Heroic abilities are two flavours of gravity bomb, either drawing enemies into an area for a few seconds or repelling them from one. Class-based shooters transfer pretty directly to MOBAs, y’see. Check it out:

The first Overwatch wizard in HotS was Tracer, by the way.

From comics I’ve seen on Twitter, I understand that Zarya is Overwatch eSports champ D.Va’s mother. They live in the same neighbourhood as the other Overwatch wizards, getting into all sorts of scrapes – usually because D.Va turns into a right mischevious munchkin while hopped up on Doritos and Mountain Dew. That’s probably canon? Though I do have my doubts – it’s too interesting a backstory for Blizzard’s writing.

The update also brings a load of balance tweaks, some of which are new or changed since the patch hit the public test server, so do read the patch notes for the full scoop.

And here’s a chap explaining what’s going on in the new map, Warhead Junction:

I don’t think so; Zarya has terrible hair. In fact, I initially thought her backstory was that she once blew a very large bubblegum… bubble and it stuck to hear head for the rest of her life. And she got into bodybuilding to cope with the horror.